for Stacey Harwood

We are not used to
thinking food has a past.

Of its picaresque travels –

its days of being manhandled,

its nights spent snuggling
across borders in a burlap sack –

we prefer not to know.

All we ask
when we are hungry
is that it appear,

miraculous as a breast
descending upon us
from a floral sky.

How it came to be there,

hovering like a word
above our lips,

is none of our concern.


Elaine Equi is the author of many collections of poetry including, Voice-Over, which won the San Francisco State Poetry Award; Ripple Effect: New & Selected Poems, which was a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Award and on the short list for The Griffin Poetry Prize; Click and Clone; and most recently, Sentences and Rain. Widely published and anthologized, her work has appeared in The Nation, Poetry, The New Yorker, and several editions of The Best American Poetry. In addition to The New School, she teaches at New York University.

feature image by World Travel Market London.

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